Enslavement and the Foundations of Human Resource Development: Covert Learning,Consciousness Raising,and Resisting antiBlack Organizational Goals

Abstract

Extant historical writings focused on Human Resource Development have generally centered white perspectives and have failed to substantively grapple with the historical experiences of racially minoritized people, leaving the field without an adequate foundation from which to address recent calls for racial inclusivity. This paper begins the process of addressing these concerns by analyzing autobiographical writings of Fredrick Douglass, a formerly enslaved African American. We situate this examination in both the broader historiography of U.S. enslavement and relevant HRD theory regarding race, diversity, and Black experiences in the workplace. The purpose of this paper is to initiate a discussion on the relevance of the institution of U.S. slavery to the history of HRD; we argue that studying formally enslaved people offers valuable lessons about resisting dehumanization in contemporary workplaces.

Keywords

Diversity History Critical Human Resource Development Black or African American Racism

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

AHRD Board of Directors . (2020). Black lives matter: Living, learning, and unlearning into an AHRD pandemic of antiracism, learning, and change. https://www.ahrd.org/page/Black-Lives-Matter.

Ajunwa

(2021). Can we trust corporate commitment to racial equity? Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/ifeomaajunwa/2021/02/23/can-we-trust-corporate-commitments-to-racial-equity/?sh=33a6b63e4222.

Alagaraja

Dooley

L. M.

(2003). Origins and historical influences on human resource development: a global perspective. Human Resource Development Review, 2(1), 82–96. https://doi.org/10.1177/1534484303251170.

Alfred

M. V.

Ray

S. M.

Zarestky

(2020). HRD and Social Justice: Education in support of the UN sustainability development goals. New Horizons in Adult Education and Human Resource Development, 32(4), 4–16. https://doi.org/10.1002/nha3.20293.

Anderson

J. D.

(1976). Aunt Jemima in dialectics: Genovese on slave culture. Journal of Negro History, 61(1), 99–114. https://doi.org/10.2307/3031537.

Baptist

E. E.

(2016). The half has never been told: Slavery and the making of American capitalism. Basic Books.

Beckert

Rockman

(Eds.). (2016). Slavery's capitalism: A new history of American economic development. University of Pennsylvania Press.

Bell

D. A.

(1980). Brown v. Board of education and the interest-convergence dilemma. Harvard Law Review, 93(3), 518. https://doi.org/10.2307/1340546.

Bell

(1992/2018). Faces at the Bottom of the Well. Basic Books.

10.

Bell

(1992). Racial realism. Connecticut Law Review, 24(2), 363–379.

11.

Bell

(1995). Who’s afraid of critical race theory? University of Illinois Law Review, 1995(4), 893-910.

12.

Berrey

(2014). Breaking glass ceilings, ignoring dirty floors: the culture and class bias of diversity management. American Behavioral Scientist, 58(2), 347–370. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764213503333.

13.

Blassingame

J. W.

(1972). The Slave Community. Plantation Life in the Antebellum South. Oxford University Press.

14.

Bohonos

J. W.

(2021a). Critical race theory and working-class white men: exploring race privilege and lower-class work-life. Gender, Work and Organization, 28(1), 54–66. https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.12512.

15.

Bohonos

J. W.

(2021b). Workplace Hate Speech and Rendering Black and Native Lives as if they do not Matter: A Nightmarish Autoethnography. Organization. https://doi.org/10.1177/13505084211015379.

16.

Bohonos

J. W.

Otchere

K. D.

Pak

Y. K.

(2019). Teaching and learning social justice in human resource development graduate programs: preparation for research and practice. New Horizons in Adult Education and Human Resource Development, 31(4), 18–35. https://doi.org/10.1002/nha3.20262.

17.

Bohonos

J. W.

Sisco

(2021). Advocating for social justice, equity, and inclusion in the workplace: an agenda for anti‐racist learning organizations. New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, 2021(170), 89–98. https://doi.org/10.1002/ace.20428.

18.

Brissett

(2020). Inequitable rewards: experiences of faculty of color mentoring students of color. Mentoring and Tutoring: Partnership in Learning, 28(5), 556–577. https://doi.org/10.1080/13611267.2020.1859327.

19.

Bullock

H. A.

(1967). A history of Negro education in the South. Harvard University Press.

20.

Butchart

R. E.

(2011). What's foucault got to do with it? history, theory, and becoming subjected. History of Education Quarterly, 51(2), 239–246. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1748-5959.2011.00333.x.

21.

Byrd

M. Y.

(2009). Telling our stories of leadership: If we don’t tell them they won’t be told. Advances in Developing Human Resources, 11(5). https://doi.org/10.1177/1523422309351514.

22.

Byrd

M. Y.

(2018). Does HRD have a moral duty to respond to matters of social injustice? Human Resource Development International, 21(1), 3–11. https://doi.org/10.1080/13678868.2017.1344419.

23.

Camp

S. M.

(2005). Closer to freedom: Enslaved women and everyday resistance in the plantation south. University of North Carolina Press.

24.

Collins

P. H.

(1989). The social construction of black feminist thought. Signs, 14(4), 745–773. https://doi.org/10.1086/494543.

25.

Collins

J. C.

(2013). Stress and Safety for Gay Men at Work Within Masculinized Industries. Journal of Gay and Lesbian Social Services, 25(3), 245–268. https://doi.org10.1080/10538720.2013.806878.

26.

Collins

J. C.

(2019). A more radical human resource development: the time is now. Human Resource Development International, 22(4), 405–411. https://doi.org/10.1080/13678868.2018.1506649.

27.

Cooke

(2003). The denial of slavery in management studies. Journal of Management Studies, 40(8), 1895–1918. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1467-6486.2003.00405.x.

28.

Crenshaw

(1989). Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: a black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory, and antiracist politics. In Bartlett

(Ed.), Feminist Legal Theory: Readings In Law And Gender (1st ed.) (pp. 4–24). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429500480.

29.

Crenshaw

Gotanda

Peller

Thomas

(1995). Critical race theory. The Key Writings that formed the Movement. The New York Press.

30.

Davis

(1981). Women, Race and Class. Random House.

31.

Davis

T. J.

Greer

T. W.

Sisco

Collins

J. C.

(2020). “Reclaiming my time” amid organizational change: a dialectical approach to support the thriving and career development for faculty at the margins. Advances in Developing Human Resources, 22(1), 23–40. https://doi.org/10.1177/1523422319885115.

32.

DeCuir-Gunby

J. T.

Chapman

T. K

Schutz

P. A.

(Eds.). (2018). Understanding Critical Race Research Methods and Methodologies: Lessons from the Field. Routledge.

33.

Dixson

A. D.

Rousseau Anderson

(2018). Where are We? Critical Race Theory in Education 20 Years Later. Peabody Journal of Education, 93(1), 121–131. https://doi.org/10.1080/0161956X.2017.1403194.

34.

Douglass

(1845). Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass, an American slave: Written by himself. Anti-Slavery Office.

35.

Douglass

(1855). My bondage, my freedom. Orton & Mulligan.

36.

Douglass

(1881). The life and times of Frederick Douglass, written by himself. De Wolfe & Fiske Co.

37.

Du Bois

W.E.B.

(1935). Black Reconstruction in America. Harcourtand Co.

38.

Dumas

M. J.

(2016). Against the dark: antiblackness in education policy and discourse. Theory Into Practice, 55(1), 11–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/00405841.2016.1116852.

39.

Edelman

L. B.

Fuller

S. R.

Mara‐Drita

(2001). Diversity rhetoric and the managerialization of the law. American Journal of Sociology, 106(6), 1589–1641. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/321303.

40.

Elkins

S.M.

(1959). Slavery: A problem in American institutional and intellectual life. University of Chicago Press.

41.

Ellinger

A. D.

Elliott

C. J.

McDonald

K. S.

Storberg-Walker

(2016). Developing a tradition of scholarship: the emergence and evolution of the AHRD-sponsored journals. Advances in Developing Human Resources, 18(4), 495–511. https://doi.org/10.1177/1523422316660970.

42.

Freire

(2005/1970). Pedagogy of the Oppressed (30th Anniversary ed).

43.

Genovese

E.D.

(1972). Roll, Jordan, roll: The world the slaves made. Pantheon Books.

44.

Gosney

M. W.

Hughes

(2016). The History of Human Resource Development: Understanding the Unexplored Philosophies, Theories, and Methodologies. Palgrave Macmillan.

45.

Gottesman

(2019). Theory in the history of education. In Rury

J. L.

Tamura

E. H.

(Eds.). The Oxford Handbook of the History of Education (pp. 65–82). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199340033.013.4.

46.

Griffin

A. A.

(2021). Black parade: Conceptualizing Black Adolescent Girls’ Multimodal Renderings as Parades. Urban Education. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F00420859211003944.

47.

Gutman

H.G.

(1976). The Black family in slavery and freedom, 1750-1925. Vintage Books.

48.

Hartman

(1997). Scenes of Subjection: Terror, Slavery, and Black Self-Making in Nineteen-Century America. Oxford University Press.

49.

Hartman

(2007). Lose your mother: A journey along the Atlantic slave route. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

50.

Hartman

(2019). Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Riotous Black Girls, Troublesome Women, and Queer Radicals. W. W. Norton & Company.

51.

Henry

(2021). Critical engagement: lessons learned and implications for HRD about black male faculty leadership in higher education. Advances in Developing Human Resources, 23(4), 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1177/15234223211037750.

52.

Horton

Freire

(1990). We make the road by walking: Conversations on education and social change. Temple University Press.

53.

Hughes

C. L.

(2014). American Black Women and Interpersonal Leadership Styles. Sense Publishing.

54.

James

C. L. R.

(1938). The Black Jacobins: Toussaint l'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution. Secker & Warburg Ltd.

55.

James-Gallaway

(2020). “I feel Like it Really Happened a lot Because Oftentimes They wouldn’t Speak About their Race”: White Racial Voyeurism of Students of Color in Cross-Racial Intergroup Dialogues (Doctoral dissertation). University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. http://hdl.handle.net/2142/108277.

56.

James-Gallaway

A. D.

Ward Randolph

(2021). Critical race theory & education history: constructing a race-centered history of school desegregation (pp. 330-342). In Lynn

Dixson

(Eds.). The handbook of critical race theory in education (2nd ed.). Routledge.

57.

Jean-Marie

Williams

V. A.

Sherman

S. L.

(2009). Black women’s leadership experiences: examining the intersectionality of race and gender. Advances in Developing Human Resources, 11(5), 562–581. https://doi.org/10.1177/1523422309351836.

58.

Jordan

W. D.

(1968). White Over Black: American Attitudes Toward the Negro, 1550-1812. University of North Carolina Press.

59.

Joseph

T. D.

Hirshfield

L. E.

(2011). “why don’t you get somebody new to do it?” Race and cultural taxation in the academy. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 34(1), 121–141. https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2010.496489.

60.

Kelly

Dobbin

(1998). How affirmative action became diversity management: employer response to antidiscrimination law, 1961 to 1996. American B, 41(7), 960–984. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jaci.2012.05.050.

61.

Kuchinke

K. P.

(2009). Changing meanings of work in Germany, korea, and the United States in historical perspectives. Advances in Developing Human Resources, 11(2), 168–188. https://doi.org/10.1177/1523422309332780 33.

62.

Kwon

C.-k.

Nicolaides

(2017). Managing diversity through triple-loop learning: a call for paradigm shift. Human Resource Development Review, 16(1), 85–99. https://doi.org/10.1177/1534484317690053.

63.

Lorbiecki

Jack

(2000). Critical turns in the evolution of diversity management. British journal of management, 11(s1), S17–S31. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8551.11.s1.3.

64.

Martin

(2016). Neighbor-to-Neighbor capitalism: local credit networks and the mortgaging of slaves. In Beckert

Rockman

(Eds.). Slavery’s capitalism: a new history of American economic development (pp. 107–121). University of Pennsylvania Press. https://doi.org/10.9783/9780812293098-005.

65.

Matsuda

M. J.

Lawrence

C. R.

Delgado

Crenshaw

K. W.

(Eds.). (1993). Words That Wound: Critical Race Theory, Assaultive Speech, and The First Amendment. Westview Press.

66.

McLean

G. N.

(2016). Personal reflections: the value of a history of the academy, personally and professionally. Advances in Developing Human Resources, 18(4), 566–574. https://doi.org/10.1177/1523422316660149.

67.

Minnett

J. L.

James-Gallaway

A. D.

Owens

D. L.

(2019). Help a sista out: black women doctoral students’ use of peer mentorship as an act of resistance. Mid-Western Educational Researcher, 31(2), 210–238.

68.

Moss

H. J

(2010). Schooling Citizens: The Struggle for African American Education in Antebellum America. University of Chicago Press.

69.

Noon

(2007). The fatal flaws of diversity and the business case for ethnic minorities. Work, Employment and Society, 21(4), 773–784. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0950017007082886.

70.

Phillips

U.B.

(1918). American Negro slavery. Appleton & Company.

71.

Rabelo

V. C.

Robotham

K. J.

McCluney

C. L.

(2020). “Against a sharp white background”: How Black women experience the white gaze at work? Gender. Work and Organization. https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.12564.

72.

Ray

(2019). A theory of racialized organizations. American Sociological Review, 84(1), 26–53. https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122418822335.

73.

Ray

V. E.

Randolph

Underhill

Luke

(2017). Critical race theory, afro-pessimism, and racial progress narratives. Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, 3(2), 147–158. https://doi.org/10.1177/2332649217692557.

74.

Robinson

(1983). Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition. University of North Carolina Press.

75.

Roediger

D. R.

Esch

E. D.

(2012). The Production of Difference: Race and the Management of Labor in U.S. History. Oxford University Press.

76.

Rood

D. B.

(2016). An international harvest: the second slavery, the Virginia- Brazil connection, and the development of the McCormick reaper. In Beckert

Rockman

(Eds.). Slavery’s Capitalism: a New History of American Economic Development (pp. 87–104). University of Pennsylvania Press. https://doi.org/10.9783/9780812293098-004.

77.

Rosenthal

(2016). slavery’s scientific management: masters and managers (62-87). In Beckert

Rockman

(Eds.). Slavery's Capitalism: a New History of American Economic Development (pp. 146–162). University of Pennsylvania Press.

78.

Rosenthal

(2018). Accounting for slavery: Masters and management. Harvard University Press.

79.

Rosser-Mims

McNellis

Johnson-Bailey

Eagan

(Eds.). (2020). Advancing Women in Leadership: Shaping Pathways in the Political Arena. Information Age Publishing.

80.

Rothman

J. D.

(2016). The contours of cotton capitalism. In Beckert

Rockman

(Eds.). Slavery's Capitalism: A New History of American Economic Development (pp. 122–145). University of Pennsylvania Press. https://doi.org/10.9783/9780812293098-006.

81.

Rudel

E. M.

Derr

Ralston

Williams

T. B.

Young

(2021). Emotional intelligence, organizational social architecture, and black male leadership. Advances in Developing Human Resources. 23(4)https://doi.org/10.1177/15234223211037749.

82.

Ruona

W. E. A.

(2001). The foundational Impact of the training within Industry project on the human resource development profession. Advances in Developing Human Resources, 3(2), 119–126. https://doi.org/10.1177/15234220122238274.

83.

Ruona

W. E. A.

(2016). Evolving human resource development. Advances in Developing Human Resources, 18(4), 551–565. https://doi.org/10.1177/1523422316660968.

84.

Russ-Eft

D. F.

(2016). Controversies that shaped the field of human resource development: town Hall forums of the academy of human resource development. Advances in Developing Human Resources, 18(4), 512–535. https://doi.org/10.1177/1523422316660148.

85.

Scott

K. D.

(2018). Check yo’ stuff: a black feminist rant to “allies” seeking “dialogue” in precarious times. International Review of Qualitative Research, 11(2), 198–209. https://doi.org/10.1525/irqr.2018.11.2.198.

86.

Short

D. C.

(2016a). HRD scholars who laid the foundations of HRD. Advances in Developing Human Resources, 18(4), 481–494. https://doi.org/10.1177/1523422316659900.

87.

Sisco

(2020). Race-conscious career development: exploring self-preservation and coping strategies of black professionals in corporate America. Advances in Developing Human Resources, 22(4), 419–436. https://doi.org/10.1177/1523422320948885.

88.

Sisco

Hart-Mrema

T. S.

Aderibigbe

(2021). Engaging in race-conscious research and applying racial equity in human resource development: a collective autoethnography. Human Resource Development International, 25(1), 591–7517. https://doi.org/10.1080/13678868.2020.1860387.online first.

89.

Sparkman

T. E

(2017). The leadership development experiences of church denomination executives. Journal of Applied Christian Leadership, 11(1), 54–68. https://digitalcommons.andrews.edu/jacl/vol11/iss1/4/.

90.

Stevenson

B. E.

(1997). Life in Black and White: family and community in the slave south. Oxford University Press.

91.

Stewart

Sambrook

(2012). The historical development of human resource development in the United Kingdom. Human Resource Development Review, 11(4), 443–462. https://doi.org/10.1177/1534484312454118.

92.

Swan

Fox

(2010). Playing the game: Strategies of resistance and co-optation in diversity work. Gender, Work and Organization, 17(5), 567–589. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0432.2010.00524.x.

93.

Swanson

R. A

Holton

E. F.

(2009). The foundations of Human Resource development (2nd ed.). Berrett Koehler.

94.

Torraco

R. J.

(2016). Early history of the fields of practice of training and development and organization development. Advances in Developing Human Resources, 18(4), 439–453. https://doi.org/10.1177/1523422316659898.

95.

Wang

G.G.

Doty

D. H.

Yang

(2021). Re-examining the history of human resource development policy in China: from loca indigenous phenomena to global huma resource development knowledge. Advances in Developing Human Resources, 24(1). https://doi.org/10.1177/15234223211054457.

96.

Watkins

K. E.

McLean

G. N.

(Eds.). (2016). A history of the academy of human resource development [special issue] (18).Advances in Developing Human Resources.

97.

White

D. G.

(1999). Ar'n't I a woman? Female slaves in the plantation South. WW Norton & Company.

98.

Wicker

C. J.

(2021). The trenches and valleys of corporate America: a black male human resource leader’s autoethnographic account. Advances in developing Human Resources. https://doi.org/10.1177/15234223211037762.

99.

Wilderson

III (2020). Afropessimism. Liveright Publishing.

100.

Williams

H. A.

(2005). Self-taught: African American education in slavery and freedom. University of North Carolina Press.

101.

Williams

H. A.

(2012). Help me find my people: The African American search for family lost in slavery. University of North Carolina Press.

102.

Woodson

C. G.

(1933/2016). The Miseducation of the Negro. Wilder Publications.

103.

Zanoni

Janssens

Benschop

Nkomo

(2010). Unpacking diversity, grasping inequality: rethinking difference through critical perspectives. Organization, 17(1), 9–29. https://doi.org/10.1177/1350508409350344.